TOPIC:

Claude Felix Redmond

Lance Corporal, Uitenhage Volunteer Rifles
Trooper, 1st Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts
Trooper, Morley’s Scouts
Private, Rand Rifles – Anglo Boer War
Trooper, Transvaal Mounted Rifles – Bambatha Rebellion

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasps Cape Colony and Orange Free State to 610 L. CORPL: C. REDMOND. UITENHAGE V.R. (also entitled to Transvaal clasp with K.F.S.)
- Natal Medal with 1906 clasp to TPR. C.F. REDMOND. TRANSVAAL MTD. RIFLES

According to the Dutch Reformed Church Baptismal Register, Claude Redmond was born on 4 January 1883 in Cape Town to Joseph Redmond and his wife Elizabeth Wilhelmina, born Reid. The third of four children, Claude had older siblings in the forms of Vivian Joseph William and Muriel Trew and a younger sibling – Archibald Frederick. That he was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church, the church synonymous with the Boers, was not unusual in the western parts of the Cape Colony. Nor was it unusual for a man of English descent to take a Dutch-speaking wife, as in this instance. The Cape, from its early days, had a very tolerant approach to the mingling of the two European cultures.

Having spent his early childhood in the environs around Cape Town, Redmond moves east towards Port Elizabeth which is where he found himself on the eve of the Anglo Boer War. Simmering tensions between Britain and the South African Republic under President Paul Kruger spilled over into a declaration of hostilities on 11 October 1899, with Kruger being joined by his ally in the Orange Free State. Initially the theatre of war was confined to Natal (which the Boers invaded) as well as Kimberley and Mafeking; all of which were invested by the Boers.

The eastern and southern parts of the Cape Colony were not initially targeted but, as the war wore on and the Boers started to experience reverses, they began to infiltrate the Cape, looking upon the Colony as a source of fresh recruits and of much needed materials and supplies for their Commandos.

With an unbearable strain placed on the small Imperial contingent in South Africa at the time war commenced, the call went out for the raising of local units manned by colonials who were familiar with the terrain. The Uitenhage Volunteer Rifles was one of the earlier formed units and it was in their service that Redmond enlisted as a Private with no. 616 at some point in early 1900.

This body of men did not exist prior to 4 February 1892 on which day the corps was formed with a strength of 100 men. The men of the U.V.R. were ordered to mobilise on 11 November 1899 and were placed on the lines of communication at Cookhouse and Witmoss tunnel. From thence they were sent to Cradock, and afterwards one company was sent to Rooispruit and two companies to Thebus, at that time occupied by a column under General Knox.


A section of the Uitenhage Volunteer Rifles

Subsequently they were relieved by the 9th Battalion, Kings Royal Rifles and proceeded to Schoombie, ultimately being transferred to Colesburg. Two companies were mounted and equipped at Cradock and sent forward to join General Clement’s column at Arundel, under whom they fought their way to Bloemfontein where they were incorporated with the First City Mounted Volunteers (Grahamstown), the whole being renamed “Marshall’s Horse.”

The exact nature of Redmond’s service with the U.V.R. is not known but the clasps he was awarded off their roll – Cape Colony and Orange Free State – tell us that he must have left their number soon after Bloemfontein was liberated. He had also been promoted to Lance Corporal by the time he took his leave of them.

Where next for Redmond? With no shortage of regiments to join – he decided on the 1st battalion of Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts – which he attested for at Port Elizabeth on 4 March 1901 with no. 962 and the rank of Trooper. The corps had been raised in December 1900, being recruited in Cape Colony and Natal, taking to the field after an initial period of training and assimilation.

By this time incursions by Boer Commandos into the Cape Colony were a regular thing and many of the locally-raised units, together with Imperial troops, were called upon to combat and repel them from the region. Even before Redmond joined, Kitchener's Fighting Scouts had attacked one hundred Boers at Doornbridge. The Boers had retired, leaving one killed but horses, carts, ammunition, and tools were taken.
Having seen plenty of action in the midlands of the Cape Colony, 1st K.F.S. were taken north where they were employed in the Pietersburg district, far north of Pretoria. In the despatch of 8th May 1901 Lord Kitchener, after detailing General Plumer's operations in that district, said that a commando had been reported at Klipdam, 15 miles north of Pietersburg, which was said to be under General Beyers.

"Lieutenant Colonel Grenfell, whose regiment, KFS, had been sent by rail to Pietersburg, was, therefore, directed to clear up the situation. Starting on the night of the 26th April, Lieutenant Colonel Grenfell discovered the enemy's laager at Klipdam, and attacked it at dawn on the 27th with complete success, with the loss of only one man wounded. Seven Boers were killed, 41 were captured, besides which he obtained possession of the enemy's camp with 26 horses, 10 mules, many waggons and carts, and 76,000 rounds of ammunition.

Information having been obtained that the enemy's last Long Tom was at Berg Plaats, about 20 miles east of Pietersburg, on the road to Haenertsburg, I desired Colonel Grenfell to make every effort to capture the gun. He moved at once, and at daylight on the 30th occupied Doornhoek, thence pushing on to Berg Plaats. On his approach the enemy opened fire at over 10,000 yards' range, but after 16 rounds they blew up the gun, while Colonel Grenfell's men were still about 3000 yards distant, and retreated in a north east direction. Colonel Grenfell captured 10 prisoners and 35 rounds of Long Tom ammunition, our only casualties being two men wounded.

As the result of a careful search on the farm, Berg Vlei, adjoining Berg Plaats, 100,000 rounds of Martini-Henry ammunition were discovered and destroyed. With Berg Vlei as a centre Colonel Grenfell continued to operate for several days with success, and a detachment of the 12th Battalion MI, under Major Thomson, was able, under cover of a thick fog, to affect the capture of Commandant Marais and 40 of his men.
Other prisoners were brought in by Lieutenant Colonels Colenbrander and Wilson of KFS, and on his return to Pietersburg, on the 6th May, Colonel Grenfell reported that altogether he had accounted for 7 Boers killed, 129 prisoners, and 50 voluntary surrenders: 240,000 rounds of ammunition were destroyed".

In May Grenfell commanded an expedition to Louis Trichardt, 100 miles north-east of Pietersburg. His force was 600 men of KFS, the 12th MI Regulars, 2 guns, and four companies of the Wiltshire Regiment. The column left Pietersburg, and two days later Colenbrander with the advanced force occupied Louis Trichardt. About the 20th Colenbrander, "by a well-planned night march, surprised a laager on the Klip Spruit. Field-Cornet Venter with 72 Burghers, 68 rifles, 18 waggons", and a large amount of ammunition and many cattle, were captured.

On the 25th May Grenfell received the surrender of Commandant Van Rensburg and about 150 men. Shortly after this Colenbrander, in the Buffels district, had some skirmishes, "killing seven and capturing a maxim. A detachment under Major Knott overtook a commando under Barend Viljoen and captured 79 prisoners". Lord Kitchener said, in his despatch of 8th July 1901, that this expedition did much to secure the pacification of the Northern Transvaal.

On 1st July 1901, at Hopewell, Grenfell surprised another laager, killing 1 and capturing 93 prisoners, 100 horses, much stock and ammunition. During August and September 1901 many other expeditions were undertaken by the corps, but the results of these were meagre compared to the splendid successes previously obtained. Redmond, however, wasn’t present for these actions – he had taken his discharge from the regiment at Pretoria on 26 September 1901, having earned the Transvaal clasp to his medal with them.

Once more without a unit, Redmond decided to join Morley’s Scouts, a little-known but highly effective outfit raised by Captain Robert Wilton Morley, ex 4th Dragoons, who had been languishing on the Retired List. Like their compatriots in Menne’s Scouts, they were ostensibly raised to patrol the railway between Pretoria and Natal. This might well have been the role they were required to play in theory, but the reality was very different. Raised in 1901 they were compensated not by the “Queens Shilling” but by a percentage of the cattle they were able to loot and purloin from the Boers. They also received no War Office gratuity, being non-enlisted men.

They were also almost unique in one other respect – the vast majority of their men were “turned Boers” – turncoats who had either surrendered or, having been captured, had taken the oath of allegiance to the Crown – despised by all self-respecting Boers still in the field, they were daily in danger of their lives should they be captured. A newspaper excerpt from 25 November 1901 read:

“Many Boers are volunteering their services to the British military authorities and are stated to be eager to attack the “irreconcilables,” and so end the struggle. The bulk of Morley’s Scouts consist of Boers who were recently fighting the British. They are all rendering valuable service and are thoroughly trusted.”

A more descriptive view of them and their actions was contained in a letter home from an Australian serving with them. Mr Hope Balmain wrote, in a letter dated Pretoria, 11th November 1901 as follows:

“700 Australian troops augmented by 60 of us (Morley’s Scouts) as special scouts and some 200 Mounted Infantry were in it thick, north of Wagen Drift last week. The Boers had, as usual, a beautiful position, and their Pom Pom in a good position was fastened onto an old Spider sulky. The position was rushed. The Australians didn’t care, neither did we (Morley’s Scouts). There was only one unfortunate chap killed and five wounded. The Boers can get away, throwing away rifles and leaving everything as they hoofed it.

We (our lot) are more after cattle than Boers as we get 70 percent of all captures from the government but no regular pay. 800 head of fat cattle with no rinderpest, bought from £18 to £80 in the market here, so we’ll get £150 at least each. It’s a risky game but if your lucky it’s okay. A couple of hundred Boers chased us near Warmbaths three weeks ago. We had to cut like blazes for ten miles but as their horses were good only two were caught – father and son – both Dutch. They shot the old man and gave the son five years in Pretoria prison.

Captain Morley, an Irishman, commands ours Scouts. There’s no discipline at all, sergeants, lieutenants and corporals, everyone on his own but when it comes to a pinch pinching cattle they are “all there.” Old Morley gives us a fortnights holiday after each haul; if he didn’t the chaps would take it, so he curses and damns but informs all hands at the same time with a growl. By the time he tells us half are already in town, but he’s a decent chap.”

Morley’s Scouts run as an independent unit wasn’t a long one – a newspaper report on 13 December 1901 under the headline National Scouts stated that, “Morley’s Scouts have been incorporated in the Corps of National Scouts, composed of Burgers who have taken the oath of allegiance. This new movement is said to be making an important addition to the field force.”

At some point, Redmond tired of this and, having taken his discharge, joined the Rand Rifles as a Mine Guard.

The war over, Redmond returned to civilian life – he remained in the Transvaal, gaining employment on the Gold Mines there but trouble was brewing elsewhere in the land - barely four years after the end of the Boer War the Zulus in Natal found expression to their frustrations in a bloody surge of conflict against authority in what became known as the Zulu or Bambatha Rebellion of 1906.



Their discontent had its origins in the imposition of a £1 Poll Tax by the Colonial Government on every male of 18 years and older. The previous war had been long and hard and, of course expensive and the Colonial purse was under strain to keep Natal afloat. In early February 1906 two white policemen were murdered whilst assisting a local Magistrate with the collection of this tax leading to the mobilisation of the Natal Militia two days later. The initial insurrection was broken by this show of force but more trouble was brewing in the Mpanza Valley near Greytown. A hot-headed young Chief, Bambatha, was openly stirring the various factions into a frenzy against the tax, refusing to heed demands to submit himself and his followers to the payment thereof. This spilled over into open rebellion and the Transvaal authorities thought it high-time that they came to the assistance of their Natal allies.

A volunteer force of some 500 hand-picked men making up the Transvaal Mounted Rifles was assembled from among other units; the Imperial Light Horse and the Scottish Rifles. On 26 April, this body left Johannesburg for Dundee to join Colonel McKenzie’s Zululand Field Force. They concentrated along with their Transvaal comrades at Dundee preparing to confront Bambatha and his allies in the Nkandla Mountains – a difficult area to penetrate but a necessary one in order to defeat the rebels.

On 3 May the force left Dundee moving by day and laagering at night with supplies for 20 days. Crossing the Blood River north of the famous Rorke’s Drift they rode for Empandhleni in Zululand reaching that place without interference on 8 May. After a day’s rest they headed for Ntingwe in the mountains. It was decided to encircle the rebels with the T.M.R. coming at them from Nkandla with the first clash of any substance coming on 3 June in the Dukuza Forests. On the night of 9 June the T.M.R. were camped at the confluence of the Insuze-Mome valleys when they received the urgent order to “move at once with all available men to the mouth of the Mome valley” where Sigananda, a Bambatha ally was hiding. By dawn on the next day they had encircled the rebels and were at the entrance to the Mome Gorge by 4 a.m.


The Benoni Troop of the T.M.R. - there is every chance that Redmond is among them

In the heavy mist the guns and rifles were ordered to fire on the blissfully unaware Zulus who were awaking from their slumber. Stunned by the unexpected fury of the attack the rebels were thrown into panic and bolted for the forest only to be met with devastating fire from the troops ranged there. Hundreds of Zulus perished in a 15 minute period before the ceasefire was called and the T.M.R. left the ridges and drove up the Gorge. All told some 500 Zulu rebels succumbed among them the prize of Bambatha whose head was severed from his body and carried away to be used as proof to the authorities that he was dead and to act as a deterrent to any others who would rise against the government.

It was thought that with Bambatha dead the rebellion would peter out however the unrest spread wider than before and the T.M.R., who had been sent on a mission to Empangeni, were called back with orders to proceed to the Umvoti Drift. They reached Dalton on 30 June and were attacked by 350 fanatical rebels, later joined by another 500, attempting to prevent them from reaching the Insuze Drift where they were headed. In desperate close-quarter fighting, with the Zulus trying to get within stabbing distance, the T.M.R. drove them off on the three occasions the warriors charged into a veritable wall of fire. Some 400 Zulus died that morning with the T.M.R. suffering one killed and two wounded.

Yet another suicidal attack was launched on the T.M.R. the next day with impis attacking from the scrub on both sides of the road as the T.M.R. advanced, coming within 10 feet of the rifles, and once more they were beaten back with heavy losses. By the last week of July, the rebellion had all but petered out and the Transvaal Mounted Rifles left Natal to the acclaim of their comrades and the thanks of the Colonial Government. Redmond and his comrades had certainly seen plenty of action and it would be wrong to suggest that the fighting was one-sided for many of the rebels had modern arms and ammunition and heavily outweighed the Militia force in numbers and, dare it be said, fanaticism. Redmond, who had served as a Trooper during the conflagration, was awarded the Natal Medal with 1906 clasp for his efforts.

Now out of uniform, on 31 December 1908, at the age of 26, he married 18 year old, Indian born, Osythe Emma Hill-Lewis in Boksburg on the East Rand. She was to give him two children, Mary Osythe, born on 1 April 1909, a mere 3 months after the couple were married inferring that the bride was heavily pregnant at the time of the nuptials - and Reginald Claude, born in 1911, before the marriage ended in an acrimonious divorce. As an aside, Mary was born in Swinburn on the Natal/Orange Free State border – where her maternal grandparents resided. Claude Redmond is referred to as a Clerk on the baptismal certificate, dated at Harrismith on 11 April 1909.

It took many years before Redmond took the marital plunge again – this time on 27 November 1926 at Johannesburg where he wed 35 year old spinster Dorothy Evelyne Gladys Cooke in the Magistrate’s Court. He was 43 year old Underground Supervisor on the New Modder Gold Mine in the district of Benoni at the time.

Claude Felix Redmond passed away in Durban, Natal on 24 August 1971 at the ripe old age of 88.

A fascinating and very detailed account, Rory. Many thanks.

As ever a fascinating read. However, I do have to express my horror at the medieval treatment given in 1906 to Bambatha's body - I shall not relay my wife's words when I told her the story. As the post shows photography was well established by 1906 and photographers were not short on the ground - so could not a more respectful way have been found to the need for identification especially as there would have been no problem with him keeping still while the photographs were taken. I have to sympathise with his rebellion as the £1 a head poll tax would not have been used for the benefit of him and his tribesmen. From the bit of reading I have done he is now considered a hero and his acolytes contest whether the British got the right man.

From what I've read the photo of Bambatha's severed head being held by a member of the Militia forces was designed for maximum effect - in order to quell the rebellion and convince his followers that he was "no more", a statement had to be made. There is debate as to whether or not the wrong man was decapitated but, it does beg the question - if Bambatha survived, why didn't he continue the rebellion?

Redmond's death certificate has come to light - he was in receipt of a war veteran's pension - it would be nice if the documents iro these awards were made public.